Vivo V5s Review; S for Scintillating

There is no doubt that Vivo has already made a strong foothold in the Philippines, and the brand wants to keep that strong foundation for years to come by providing affordable, yet relevant devices to the Filipinos. Recently, they launched a new device that will cater to the young and young-at-heart selfie generation, the Vivo V5s.

PHYSICAL:

Vivo V5s Unboxing and Hands-on

The Vivo V5s is the follow up to the last year's Vivo V5, and can be considered as an incremental upgrade of the latter. These two handsets are almost identical in almost every aspect, albeit, the V5s comes with twice as much internal storage. This means that physical dimensions, measurements, and weight are all still the same.

Front

For uninitiated, it measures 153.8mm x 75.5mm x 7.6mm and weighs just about 154 grams. For comparison purposes, it is slightly smaller, narrower, and lighter than the OPPO F1s (154.5mm x 76mm x 7.4mm, 160 grams), but, the opposite can be said with the OPPO F3 (153.3mm x 75.2mm x 7.3mm, 153 grams). When compared with the V5 Plus, it is lighter by about 4.6 grams, but taller, wider, and thicker (52.6mm x 74mm x 7.3mm, 158.6 grams).

Back

Another difference is the design, it slightly moves away from its predecessor and move towards to the looks of the V5 Plus. It dropped the easily noticeable antenna bands found on the upper and lower portions of its older brother, and changed it to a more sophisticated U-shape lines.

Vivo Y55s and Vivo V5s

The subtle design refinement mentioned above does not change the fact that it still looks similar, if not the same with other Vivo devices. The resemblance is so strong that people usually get mistaken, which model is which, especially when looking at the phone's back.

The V5s runs on Android Marshmallow with Vivo's proprietary FunTouch OS 3.0. The user interface is practically the same with other Vivo phones that runs on the same skin, just like the Vivo V5 Lite. The FunTouch OS has lots of similarities on how the Apple iOS works.

To begin with, it has no app drawer, all apps are placed in the homescreen. The way you interact with the app, mimics that of the iOS too, for one, pressing and holding the app brings up the edit mode, wherein users can arrange icons or uninstall apps. The notification can be accessed by swiping from the top of the screen, while the quick setting toggle is accessible by swiping from the bottom. The same is true with the messaging app, and the list of similarities goes on.

FunTouch OS Features

But, FunTouch is not jut mere copycat, it has tons of nifty and useful features too. Some of them are the Smart Split to use two apps at the same time, App Clone to have two same apps installed that user can use independently, Super Screenshot to capture the screen in many ways, including recording what you are doing, and Smart Click wherein you can assign a function when you long press the Volume - key.

PERFORMANCE:

CPU-Z Info

This handset has a 5-inch HD display powered by 64-bit octa core MediaTek MT6750 chipset paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of ROM. As mentioned earlier, the V5s is basically a V5 with twice as much built-in storage and different antenna band design, which simply means their performance would be practically identical. The same holds true when you compare it with the V5 Lite, which has the same SoC, but with only 3GB of RAM.

The day to day tasks are smooth, there is no noticeable lag when switching between multiple apps, even if there are plenty of them in the background, that huge amount of RAM surely helps consistent steady operation. Of course, little stutters are encountered when using or playing heavy-resources apps or games, which is expected for a mid-range chip inside a mid-range device.

By the way, basic phone functions worked well without issue, sending and receiving text messages are good, both parties can hear each other pretty well during calls, audio clarity is decent, and the loudspeaker has loud solid output.

CAMERA:

Camera Interface

The camera UI is identical to that of other devices in the Vivo family, such as V5 Lite and Y55s, due to the fact that they are all using the same proprietary skin, which is again the FunTouch OS 3.0. The interface offers intuitive experience with several shooting modes, filters, and lots of customizable settings. There is a very minimal learning curve to fully operate the camera, but how to unlock its full potential is another thing, especially when using the Professional Mode.

Vivo has been battling OPPO, its main rival in the Philippines, in taming the hearts of customers who put a lot of stones in the selfie shooter. The V5s is part of Vivo's perfect selfie campaign, and with its 20MP front snapper, it is not hard to see why, its resolution is even higher than the main camera's 13-megapixel. It also offers a lot more than just higher pixel count, when in the beautification mode, which they named Face Beauty, there is an added feature called BOKEH, wherein in it blurs the background. Moreover, there is a Group Selfie mode, which is basically a panoramic selfie. These two things are nice software work around that compensates the lack of a second front camera, which the V5 Plus has, not to mention OPPO's F3 and F3 Plus.

Front Camera Sample - Selfie

Front Camera Sample - Selfie with Bright Light

Front Camera Sample - Selfie at Night

Front Camera Sample - Selfie with Softlight Flash

Front Camera Sample - Selfie with Bokeh

Based on our test shots, the front camera really gives us nice selfies, especially when in the Face Beauty, the details are there without overdoing the software trick to make us look good. The softlight flash also helps in achieving usable selfies even in dim environments. However, like our usual gripe over fixed-focus front camera, it tends to overexposed when it detects bright light in the background. BOKEH works as it should, but we recommend the use of a monopad, since using just your arm makes some part of the face blurry too.

Rear Camera Sample - Afternoon Shot without HDR

Rear Camera Sample - Afternoon Shot without HDR

Rear Camera Sample - Indoor, Okada Tiger

Rear Camera Sample - Close-up

Rear Camera Sample - Salted Egg Prawns

Rear Camera Sample - Ebi Seafood Ramen

Rear Camera Sample - Night Shot

Rear Camera Sample - Night Shot, Manual Mode

Rear Camera Sample - Night Mode

Moving on to the main camera, there is a 13MP f/2.2 module attached to its back. On paper, that is exactly the same thing found on the Vivo V5, and OPPO F3. The focusing speed is fast even in less ideal conditions, thanks to the phase-detection auto focus system. Quality wise, there isn't much to complain with, at least when there is ample lighting, the sharpness is on point, it has good dynamic range, contrast is well-balanced, and while color reproduction is slightly saturated, it is how we like our photos. At night, or under similar conditions, the output is still good and pretty much usable, however, details captured are lesser, noise and grains are evident, thankfully, those are only noticeable when photos are viewed in full scale.

CONNECTIVITY:

The Vivo V5s covers the basics plus some extras, it can accommodate two SIM cards, one micro plus one nano, both of which supports LTE connectivity. However, users cannot have dual SIM functionality and expanded storage at the same time, because nano SIM and micro SD card share the same slot. So, if you really need more storage space, you can use a flash drive as its micro USB port has OTG function, or use cloud, such as OneDrive or Dropbox. Anyway, if you have no data plan, WiFi connection is stable and reliable. The other things are GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS, FM Radio, and 3.5mm audio jack is still present.

BATTERY:

PC Mark Battery Test

Underneath is a 3000mAh battery, which is exactly the same with that of the Vivo V5 Lite, they also have the same screen size, display resolution, and chipset, that is why it is not so surprising that their PC Battery Test results are almost identical, 11 hours and 2 minutes. Our uptime varies, but normally it would last more than a day.

If you want to extend the battery life, there is a low power consumption mode, which lowers down the CPU and GPU frequencies, disconnects wireless connectivity including GPS, and disabled vibration feedback and screen rotation. There is also super power-saving mode that prolongs it further, by enabling only contacts, phone, messages, and clock.

CONCLUSION:

The Vivo V5s is a very capable handset, its processing power combined with the 4GB of RAM is enough in providing smooth user-experience. Its rear camera provides more than acceptable image quality, especially when you know how to use the manual controls. The same is true with its front camera that can deliver impressive 'perfect selfie' shots. Moreover, the battery life is considered superb too. In short, it is a pretty good all rounder and gives decent value for money.